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Originally Posted by Pitchwife
Or maybe not - if he knew what Melkor was up to all along, he didn't need to adapt his design.
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Well, I'd like to go with this idea tbh, since it is coherent with the concept of the all-knowing, all-powerful god.
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Christian theology (at least the Catholic tradition I was raised in) tends to regard death as 'the wages of sin' - i.e. a lamentable consequence of the Fall, to be redressed by Christ's incarnation/crucifixion/resurrection (hence 'death, where is thy sting'); implying that if Adam & Eve had not sinned and fallen, they might have lived forever.
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a) there's any kind of loophole in Christian theology that allows for Tolkien's view of death to be considered as orthodox
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The original sin is also viewed in another way: felix pecata, the happy fault, that will require the presence of Christ.
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"O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem," "O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer."
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a line from the traditional Western Rite hymn of praise intoned by the deacon during the Easter Vigil. This was also invoked by theologians, such as Thomas d'Aquino, to explain how a greater good can be brought through the existence of evil. Tolkien too in his Letters shows a similar view:
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Originally Posted by Letters, p. 76
All things and deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their 'causes' and 'effects.' No man can estimate what is really happening at the present sub specie aeternitatis. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success – in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.
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I think this is the joining point of the two views on death. Tolkien took liberty in exploring the subject of death from another angle, but maintaining the basic principles, humans predestined to die by design no matter what, and the situation of humans born in sin is a pre-condition for something much greater (the coming of Christ in christianity which is uniquely important not just for humans but for all creation, and the fulfillment of the role of creation in Ea through Men and their gifts).